HIV and ID Observations

I was passing a colleague in the hall the other day — he’s a general internist by training, now an important hospital administrator — and he briefly stopped me to get my take on the flurry of ID-related news bombarding the world right now.

Him:  Hey, Paul, good to see you.
Me:  Hi Jerry.
Him:  Quite a time for you guys in ID, isn’t it. Did you read the piece in the Times on Ebola? On how it could mutate to become much more transmissible? Is airborne spread really a possibility?
Me:  Yes, scary.
Him:  And how about this enterovirus 68 situation? No cases in Boston so far, right? But how long before it gets here? That must be inevitable.
Me:  Yes, scary.
Him:  One more thing. We’ve spent every Christmas holiday the past few years in the Caribbean, this year we’re tentatively planning to go to a resort in the Dominican Republic. My wife wanted me to ask you about Chikungunya — any reason to be worried? Sounds like it’s a pretty bad situation down there.
Me:  Yes, scary.

Now I was a bit less repetitive (and I hope more helpful) in my responses, but the message remains the same — this is quite the time for infectious outbreaks that are, in a word, “scary.”

Which is why it was a relief this past week to get the following comment on the blog, demonstrating that there are other things going on in the world besides hemorrhagic fevers, kids with severe respiratory disease, and febrile, joint-contorting sickness, and that furthermore, our site’s spam filter is not infallible:

“this article is fine but honestly all i care about is that black sabbath are the greatest group of all time.”

Thank you very much, glad you have your priorities straight.

And hat tip to Kristin Kelley for finding this brilliant comment in the comments folder, and even more so for having the presence of mind to alert me to it.